Texas Law continues to solidify its standing as one of the nation’s preeminent schools for students with a passion for public service and public interest lawyering.
On the heels of all school-funded postgraduate fellowship salaries increasing from $60,000 to $75,000—the highest reported salary of any U.S. law school—Dean Bobby Chesney introduced four new fellowships for a total of 11 such opportunities.
The law school’s postgraduate fellowships are administered by the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law. “These new fellowships, along with their competitive salaries, will be game changers for our students and new graduates,” says Justice Center Director Nicole Simmons ’07, who oversees the fellowship application and award processes.
“Postgraduate fellowships launch public interest careers,” says Simmons. “These new fellowships help ensure that these careers are available to every student who wishes to spend their professional lives doing this work.”
Manne Family Fellowships
Three of those are Manne Family Fellowships, established by Neal Manne ’80, a partner in the Houston office of Susman Godfrey LLP, and his wife, Nancy McGregor, an attorney who serves on various boards including the Center for Reproductive Rights. The fellowships will be awarded for at least the next five years to graduating students or judicial clerks who partner with a qualified nonprofit legal organization to spend a year dedicated, as Manne and McGregor describe, “to work in the areas of civil rights, civil justice, or reproductive rights, broadly defined.”
“Nancy and I are delighted to help fund these public service opportunities for Texas Law graduates,” says Manne. McGregor also notes that she and Manne have been directly funding such fellowships at various organizations for the past five years.
Environmental Justice Fellowship
Texas Law is also launching the Environmental Justice Fellowship, a two-year opportunity awarded to a graduating student or judicial clerk to work with a public interest environmental legal organization. Applicants will preferably plan to spend their fellowship in Texas, particularly with organizations that have recently partnered with the school’s Environmental Clinic.
This fellowship will be awarded twice, once in 2025 and again in 2026. It is being generously supported by Todd Vogel and Karen Hust, Seattle-based philanthropists who have also directed their support to the Environmental Clinic and the student-run Environmental Law Society, which arranges for educational and career-oriented activities for interested Texas Law students.
Investing in Public Interest
The new fellowships, along with the salary increase for all fellowships, are just the latest investments that Texas Law and its supporters have made in public interest support for students.
Starting in 2022 the school made a major commitment to its Summer Public Service Program, which guarantees students a summer public service or public interest position with a stipend of up to $8,000 per student. Since then, the school has funded more than 400 positions, distributing nearly $3.2 million. The SPSP builds on—and partners with—the longtime foundation of summer public interest support at the law school, the student-led Texas Law Fellowships.
And last spring, Chesney overhauled the benchmarks used for the law school’s Loan Assistance Repayment Program, committing the school to offering full loan relief to graduates in qualifying public service jobs with salaries up to $75,000, an increase from the previous level of $60,000. In addition, the school now provides partial relief for such positions for salaries up to $120,000, an increase from the previous cap of $80,000.
“We want to be the best place in the world for law students pursuing their passion for public service,” Chesney said at the time. “This ensures that they can afford these meaningful and impactful careers.”
To learn more about Texas Law’s new postgraduate fellowships, including application requirements and deadlines, visit the Justice Center’s fellowships page.